Mikaela Shiffrin on the Mental Side of Racing and Her Season Ahead

If you’ve ever wondered what 28-year-old and two-time 2023 ESPY award winner Mikaela Shiffrin thinks is the toughest part of racing, well, it’s not actually the physical demands. We recently caught up with her during a quick break between training in Chile and jetting off to Europe to begin the World Cup season, and if there’s one thing clear it’s that Shiffrin is ready to ski, and we are more than ready to watch her season begin.

At the start of her season, it’s always hard to predict what exactly will become Shiffrin’s largest hurdle. And, as she told us, it might not even be a physicality. Shiffrin’s biggest challenge is mental when it comes to racing and competing. And even with her outstanding record and G.O.A.T. status (although she prefers to keep that title for the animals), she takes everything as it comes.

“I think its more difficult to train mentally [than physically] because you can’t train for something when you don’t know what to expect, so it’s more taking it as it comes versus training for something,” Shiffrin says, adding “I don’t know how I’m going to feel at the first race or at the middle or end of the season. I need to use the support system around me, and just take it as it comes.” She also places a heavy emphasis on the people she surrounds herself with who help prop her up.

“That support system is the most important thing, and being able to take advantage of the time that we have together with my family and the closest people around me when I get that time those are things that keep me in a good mental place to be able to go to the races.”

And as the race season commences at the end of October in Austria Shiffrin is ready, and excited to be back (and since that means it’s practically ski season in the Northern Hemisphere, we couldn’t be more in sync). We, however, aren’t staring down the slalom wondering if we’ll secure 100 wins, unlike Shiffrin, who most certainly has it in the back of her mind.

“Right now, it’s not based off of any kind of record or specific kind of performance I want to have, it really just boils down to— I want to ski fast, I want to still feel like I have the ability that I’m still improving, and I feel good.” Oh, and on that coveted, golden hundred? “It sounds kind of simple to say, and there’s a certain amount of focus I have to put on results, but I try to keep my focus on my skiing and the clarity I want to feel when I’m on my skis and how I want to race. Hopefully, that won’t be the biggest challenge this year since the record happened last year, but now everyone’s talking about one hundred so please just get out of my head,” the latter comment she mentioned while shooing her hand away from her head, giggling.

Numbers and records aside, Shiffrin is already looking forward to her favorite event. It’s not on legendary soon-to-be Olympic snow in Cortina, or even the season opener in Soelden, Austria. Shiffrin has her eyes set on Vermont. The Stifel Killington Cup will once again take place over Thanksgiving weekend and is set to have one hundred women from 21 nations competing for the podium.

“I’m always excited for Killington. The home races are always really exciting. They always manage to pull it off just before the race because they have the most powerful snowmaking on the planet.” She’s also looking forward to the roar of the crowds, “The people come from all over the East Coast, and they’re the biggest crowds we see on the entire World Cup. The crowds are unbelievable.”

And a face within those massive crowds? Well, that might just be singer-songwriter and famed Vermont native Noah Kahan. Kahan has spectated and performed at the Killington Cup in years prior and recently had a profile written about him as part of TIME 100, and the writer? None other than Mikaela Shiffrin, who happened to spend several years living closeby to Kahan’s hometown while attending Burke Mountain Academy.

“I got a chance to meet Noah this year, he’s done some projects with the U.S. Ski team, and he did a concert in Killington… and then stayed for [the Women’s slalom] race and watched from the finish area, and at the time I didn’t make the connection. Then [this summer] came to the Taylor Swift concert with my teammates and me, and it was just the most wild experience.” Shiffrin explained that despite thinking he was part of the team when they first met (he was, after all wearing U.S. Ski team gear) they’ve kept in touch.

“And with that connection is why I think TIME asked me to write the piece. They give you the option between doing an interview and having a TIME writer write the piece, or doing it yourself and I said, I have to do this, and make it perfect and meaningful,” adding “If he reads this, I want him to cry.”